Following a difficult period during where Walt Disney Feature Animation struggled to release successful animated feature films, the studio, inspired by their most recent animated success The Little Mermaid(1989), decided to adapt the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" into an animated musical film after a non-musical adaptation had been attempted that failed to impress Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Katzenberg ordered that production on the film be started over from scratch, hiring songwriting team Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who had just recently completed scoring The Little Mermaid, to write the film's songs. Dion and Bryson were hired to record a pop version of – and draw media attention to – the film's title song. Ashman, who was initially hesitant to join the project, died of AIDS before the film's completion and the album's release.

In December 2001, the soundtrack was re-released as a Special Edition to coincide with the IMAX re-issue of the film and the upcoming two-disc Platinum Edition. The new release featured the film version of "Transformation", which had been replaced with an early unused version in some early pressings, the newly animated song "Human Again", the original instrumental intended for the "Transformation" scene, (titled "Death of the Beast (Early Version)" here) and demos for "Be Our Guest" and the title track. In September 2010, the soundtrack was re-released again as a Diamond Edition soundtrack, to coincide with the successful Blu-ray and DVD Diamond Edition release of the film, the 1991 version of the soundtrack was released and included Jordin Sparks' cover of "Beauty and the Beast" as a bonus track. The soundtrack was reissued as the fourteenth entry in The Legacy Collection on February 9, 2018 and includes previously unreleased score.

Prior to getting professionally involved with Disney, Ashman and Menken had collaborated on a musical adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors and its subsequent musical film adaptation. Following the studio's attempt to adapt the fairy tale into a non-musical animated film under the direction of Richard Purdum, Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, dissatisfied by the direction in which the film was headed, ordered that it be scrapped and restarted from scratch, this time in the form of a musical. In addition to hiring a screenwriter, Katzenberg recruited Ashman and Menken to write the film's songs.

Ashman was initially reluctant to agree to work on Beauty and the Beast because he had just recently been diagnosed with AIDS. Additionally, he had already begun writing songs for Aladdin(1992). Ashman's health began deteriorating soon after he completed The Little Mermaid. However, he wanted his illness to remain secret and decided to tell few about it. Too weak to travel, Ashman requested that he be allowed to work on the film's songs from his home, causing Menken and the filmmakers to frequently travel from the film's studio in Burbank, California to his home in New York in order to collaborate with him. Ashman wrote the majority of the song's lyrics from his deathbed.[1][2][3]

Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken intended for the songs in Beauty and the Beast to serve as plot devices and assist in the telling of its story. According to Menken, the film's songs grew out of the fact that the film was written to "almost ... exist as a stage musical."[4] Stylistically, Ashman and Menken drew creative influence from several musical styles and genres, including French, classical and Broadway music, using them as reference and inspiration when composing the film's songs.[5] Menken also revealed that the film's songs and score tend to convey a wide variety of emotions, ranging from poignancy to humor and joy.[6]

While composing the orchestral score that accompanies the film's prologue, Menken was inspired by the French suiteThe Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns, referring to it as his own version of Saint-Saëns' composition.[5] Menken believes that all properly structured musicals should feature an "I Want" song because they are essentially "about a character having a big dream, then [there's] some obstacle to that quest."[7] "Belle", the film's opening number, is an "orchestra-driven",[8] "snare-tapping" song. Accompanied by a full orchestra,[9] it is considered Beauty and the Beast's "I Want" song.[10] Musically, Menken based "Belle" on the narrative style of a traditional operetta, describing it as "something to portray Belle in a world that is so protected and safe." Menken described the film's following musical number, "Gaston", as a hilarious "drinking song sung by basically a group of Neanderthal level guys in praise of a complete lug-head", referring to Ashman's choice of song lyrics as humorous and "tongue in cheek".[5]

When it came time to write the film's large-scale "scintillating"[11] musical number "Be Our Guest", Menken originally composed and provided Ashman with a simple melody that was initially intended for temporary use only, simply for the purpose of allowing his co-writer to start developing the song's lyrics. He labeled the rough composition "the dummy". However, Menken eventually gave up on his attempt to improve upon the song's simple melody, and it ultimately became the version to which Ashman wrote his lyrics.[5] Menken described "Be Our Guest" as a song that is both "simple and tuneful" that "let[s] the lyric shine."[12]

Originally, Ashman and Menken had written a rather lengthy, large-scale musical number for the film called "Human Again". However, when it was deemed "too ambitious", they swiftly wrote and replaced it with a smaller-scale musical number entitled "Something There".[5] According to Menken, the film's theme and title song, "Beauty and the Beast", was "a very hard song to come by" despite its relative simplicity.[11][12] He revealed that the writing process for "Beauty and the Beast" was the longest period of time that he had ever devoted to one particular song. Written to resemble a lullaby, Ashman and Menken conceived "Beauty and the Beast" as "a song that could have a life outside the movie." The film's final musical number, "The Mob Song", was written as what Menken described as "a macho adventure underscore".[5]

When the film was released, it garnered three separate Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song for "Belle", "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast". Producer Don Hahn expressed concern that this would cause confusion among audiences and voters, and potentially result in an unfavorable tie. In order to prevent this from happening, the studio fought in favor of the film's title song and decided to release a pop rendition of "Beauty and the Beast" as a commercial single in an attempt to persuade voters to vote for it.[13] When "Beauty and the Beast" was written, it was composed with the potential of having "half a life outside the movie."[4] Menken revealed that this was the first time one of his compositions had been rearranged and "turned into ear candy".[14]

Menken recruited musician Robbie Buchanan to arrange[15][16] "Beauty and the Beast" into the form of a pop duet[17] while Walter Afanasieff was responsible for producing the track.[14][18][19] Afanasieff also assisted Buchanan in the arranging of the song.[20] Menken was ultimately pleased with Afanasieff's production, explaining, "Walter Afanasieff ... took it and really molded it into something very different than I ever intended and I grew to love it. In a way, Walter made it his own, and I love that."[14] Because Disney could not afford to hire a "big singer", they drafted Canadian singer Celine Dion, who was relatively new to the music industry at the time, to record "Beauty and the Beast". However, the studio feared that she would not draw much media attention because of her relative obscurity in the United States, so they hired American singer Peabo Bryson, who was a more well-known recording artist at the time, to perform alongside her.[10][13] The newly arranged song was released as the album's lead single on November 25, 1991.[9]

Similar to the overwhelmingly positive critical response that the film received, Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was met with universal acclaim from both music and film critics, garnering nearly unanimous praise for both its songs and score. Tavia Hobart of AllMusic awarded the soundtrack a nearly perfect overall score of 4.5/5 stars, describing Ashman and Menken's compositions as "positively delightful." However, she felt that the album's orchestral score was not as good as The Little Mermaid. Filmtracks was very enthusiastic about the album, praising each of its songs and labeling them "remarkably upbeat". The reviewer also praised Ashman and Menken for avoiding "stupid comedic performances to appeal to children." Unlike AllMusic's opinion, the reviewer felt that the score was "a vast improvement" over The Little Mermaid's. Sputnikmusik's Irving Tan awarded the album a "superb" overall rating of 4.5/5. Praising the film's entire collection of songs in a detailed review, Tan accredited the overall appeal of the soundtrack with much the film's success.[8]

Just as the film made history by becoming the first animated film to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination, so too the soundtrack made history by becoming the first animated film soundtrack to receive an Album of the Year Grammy nomination (to date, no other animated film soundtrack has been nominated in this category). The pop version of the title track "Beauty and the Beast" also received Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In total, the soundtrack won 3 Grammys for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson, Best Pop Instrumental Performance (Richard Kauffman), and Best Song Written for a Motion Picture (Alan Menken).[25]

D^ New song integrated into the film for the 2001 Special Edition IMAX re-issue and 2001 DVD release.

E^ Integrated into the film's end credits for the 2001 Special Edition IMAX re-issue and 2001 DVD release. On initial pressings of the original release of the soundtrack, this cue replaced the version used in the film up until the moment when the transformation begins. Eventually the album was re-pressed with the film version of the cue and has been presented in its proper film version on the 2001 and 2010 reissues.